Shirley scrutinized the interior of the machine, but there seemed nothing to distinguish it from the thousands of other piratical craft which pillage the public with the aid of the taximeter clock on the port beam!  Soon they were at the big Broadway playhouse, where Shirley floundered out first, after the ungallant manner of many sere-and-yellow beaux.  He swayed unsteadily, teetering on his cane, as Helene leaped lightly to the sidewalk beside him.  The driver stood by the door of the car, leering at him.

“Here, keep the change,” and Shirley handed him a generous bill.

“Shall I wait fer ye, gov’nor?  I ain’t got no call to-night.  I’ll be around here all evening.”

The criminologist nodded, and the chauffeur handed Helene the carriage number check.

“Don’t let ’em steal de old gink, inside, girlie.  He’s strong fer de chorus chickens.”

Helene shuddered before the hawk-like glare of his malevolent eyes, but in her part, she shook her head with a laugh, and followed airily after her escort.

“Good-evening, sir.  Back again to-night, I see,” volunteered the ticket taker, to whom William Grimsby was a familiar visitant.  Shirley reeled with steadied and studied equilibrium, into the foyer of the theatre, as he nodded.  Their seats were purposely in the rear of a side box, well protected from the audience by the holders of the front positions.  The criminologist appeared to relapse into dreams of bygone days, while his companion peered into the vast audience and then at the nimble limbed chorus on the stage with piquant curiosity.

“For years I wanted to see an American stage and an American audience,” she confided in an undertone, “and to think that when I do so, it is acting myself, on the other side of the footlights in a stranger, more dramatic part than any one else in the theatre.  A curious world, isn’t it?”

Shirley breathed deeply, drinking in the maddening perfume of her glorious hair, so perilously near his own face.  The shimmer of her shoulders, the adorable curves of that enticing scarlet mouth murmuring so near his own, and yet so far away, in this soul-racking game of make-believe, stirred his blood as nothing else had done in all the kalaediscopic years.

“Yes, a more than curious world.  How things have changed since last evening when I planned a sleepy evening at the opera.  I wonder what the outcome will be?”

Helene looked up at him quickly, then as suddenly toward the Russian danseuse within the golden frame of the great proscenium.  The orchestra, with its maddening Slavic music, stirred her pulses with a strange telepathy.  The evening wore along, until the final curtain.  Shirley, with cumbersome effort helped her with her cloak, dropping his hat and stick more than once in simulated awkwardness.  The electric numerals of the carriage call soon brought the grimy-faced chauffeur.

“Jack on the spot, gov’nor, that’s me!” and he swung the door open.